Boulder trying to envision new heart of city

How to dream big and imagine the ideal heart at the center of Boulder -- while living within financial and geographical constraints -- is the challenge before city officials and the larger community as a planned revamp of the "civic center" gets under way.

A long-term plan for the development of the area immediately south of Canyon Boulevard from Ninth to 17th streets topped the list of recommended projects in a report from the city's Capital Investment Strategy Committee earlier this year.

That area contains Central Park, the bandshell, the Dushanbe Teahouse, the Municipal Building, the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, the main library branch, the farmers market and a mix of public and private property.

In a joint study session Tuesday night, the Boulder City Council and the Planning Board discussed what the process of developing such a plan would look like.

"How do we think about the civic center as a place where all of our communities come together and become a whole greater than the parts?" asked David Driskell, the city's director of community planning and sustainability, at the beginning of the discussion.

The planned revamp of central Boulder ties in with several other ongoing projects, including floodplain mitigation along Boulder Creek, the future needs of the municipal complex and the redevelopment of Canyon Boulevard into an actual boulevard.

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So far, some of the ideas for the area have included developing a cultural center, creating an improved outdoor amphitheater or a museum and expanding the farmers market. There also has been discussion of building a conference center or performing arts center in the block bounded by Canyon Boulevard, Arapahoe Avenue, 13th Street and 14th Street.

City planning officials plan a series of workshops and public meetings -- as well as online outreach -- this summer to get feedback from the community. This fall, they'll hold a design or idea competition to further develop the plan. City officials will reach out to nationally known architects and planners but also to local design firms and Boulder High School students.

The process likely will produce a ballot measure and bond issue that would go before voters in 2014 and a more long-term plan that would guide development in the area for decades to come.

"The idea isn't to select a winning design," senior urban designer Sam Assefa said. "You may have five great ideas that are distinctively different. That would be the basis to take this to the next level."

City planners expect to develop a more concrete plan from those ideas -- and an initial financial analysis -- by next spring, though they said there would be multiple opportunities for public feedback along the way.

"This isn't the sort of thing where we want to work in a back room and come out with a draft plan," Driskell said.

City Council members and Planning Board members went back and forth on the value of getting every idea on the table versus keeping the constraints -- from flood risk to cost to lack of city control over privately owned property, especially east of 14th Street -- front and center.

"I don't want to preclude some great ideas," said Councilman Tim Plass. "We need to keep the top of the funnel really wide at the beginning of the process."

But Councilwoman Suzy Ageton said community members have felt let down in the past when an expansive "visioning" process resulted in much more pedestrian plans.

"It's a delicate dance," she said. "I don't want to constrain too much, but I also don't want it completely unbounded so we get the bounce-back on the other end."

Planning Board member Mary Young pointed to previous master plans for the area that have not come to fruition.

Assefa said that sometimes, constraints can yield opportunities. For example, turning paved land in the floodplain into permeable surface like a park could reduce the flood risk in other parts of the civic center area.

Young said sustainability -- whether local energy generation or shuttles to the farmers market -- needs to be part of the plan.

The participants also debated whether the timeline is too short for such an ambitious plan or too long to maintain community interest.

Planning Board member Bill Holicky said community members have, in the past, developed "process fatigue."

As ambitious as the civic center revamp is, a shorter process would produce more and better community participation, he said.

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